Glass Houses
by Lamia of the Dark
Summary: Oneshot. sequel to Roses. Bellatrix finds the answer she was looking for, but this discovery is eclipsed by the revelation of a betrayal that shatters her reality and now it is up to Voldemort to pick up the pieces. VoldemortxBella.


**DISCLAIMER: All things Harry Potter belong to J.K. Rowling.**

**A/N: Excessively Complex, this probably isn't the answer **_**you**_** were looking for either.**

-- Glass Houses --

It has only been a few days and already she has returned to me with the correct answer but, for some odd reason, she isn't jumping at the chance to claim her prize. Her gaze is locked on me, but her eyes are unfocused. She is distracted and upset.

I reach out and lightly stroke her cheek. She jumps, startled by the sudden touch.

"You were miles away," I say softly. "What is bothering you?"

"I-" She looks up at me with a pained expression. I think about telling her that she may hold her silence on the matter if it upsets her so much to talk of it. But just as I am thinking this, her expression hardens and she speaks. Her voice is tight with emotion. "I just found out that Rodolphus has been lying to me and cheating on me."

That is the last thing I would have expected to hear, but the information in and of itself does not actually surprise me.

"Glass houses, Bella..."

"_I NEVER LIED TO HIM ABOUT IT_," she explodes. "_HE KNEW, I __**TOLD**__ HIM!_"

_Yes, and then he selectively chose what and what not to believe_, I think sarcastically to myself.

She takes a moment to compose herself and continues in a much calmer tone, "What he's done is different. It's... it..." Her voice falters and she seems to struggle for words with which to explain. She reaches out to me tentatively. "Here, let me show you."

Physical contact isn't absolutely necessary, but I've found that it does improve clarity. I know she is also seeking comfort, but I do not know how much of it I can actually provide.

I take her into my arms. She clutches at the front of my robes and buries her face against my shoulder. I shift position so that I have one hand at the small of her back and the other cupping the back of her neck.

I can sense her opening her mind to me and I plunge into her recent memories.

_"Don't you __**dare**__!" Narcissa's voice is shrieking. "You're going to get yourself __**killed**__!"_

_The answering voice is too muffled for me to make out the words. I don't recognize the second voice, but Bella's mind has identified it as belonging to Rodolphus._

_(It takes me a moment to realize that Bella overheard this through a wall and that I am, in fact, not viewing this scene as a third party but rather experiencing it from Bella's point of view.)_

_Narcissa is shouting again. "You can't just walk up to the Dark Lord and ask him to please quit screwing your wife!"_

_Again, I can hear that a reply is made, but I can't make out any words._

_(My view suddenly shifts to a positon where I can actually see the two of them and I receive the sudden knowledge that Bella, once she'd realized the conversation concerned her, had sneaked around to spy on them through a half-open door.)_

_"Don't do anything stupid like trying to protect her. She can take care of herself and she knows what she's doing." Narcissa's voice has lost the sense of panic it held earlier and she is speaking softly now. "I don't want you to get hurt. I don't know what I would do without you." The words surprise me. If her husband has been cheating on her with __**her own sister**__, then it's no wonder that Bella is so upset over it._

_An echo of thought tells me that Bella was surprised at these words, as well as confused. She was thinking that maybe her sister had meant to say that she didn't know what __**Bella**__ would do without him. That thought is shattered as quickly as it forms._

_Narcissa lays her hands on Rodolphus's chest and leans against him._

_"You are Draco's father, after all. I couldn't bear to lose you."_

_Another shock. I never would have guessed that Lucius Malfoy was not truly Draco's father. For that matter, I doubt there are many peaople who would. At this point Bella's mood shifts from confusion to anger. (I assume she knows something that I do not, but I don't exit the memory to search for it.)_

_Rodolphus wraps his arms around Narcissa and says, "You'd still have Lucius."_

_Narcissa makes a derisive sound. "I barely have Lucius now."_

_Rodolphus sighs heavily. "You know your sister thinks I love her. I don't want to do anything to endanger that illusion."_

_"That doesn't mean you have to go and do something stupid to demonstrate your 'love'. You don't even really care whether she's doing it or not."_

_"Of course I care whether she's doing it or not."_

_"Right. Because if she is, it means you get a break from her trying to get __**you**__ into bed with her."_

And suddenly I find myself back in my own bedroom with Bella in my arms.

"I didn't hang around after that." Her words are muffled against my shoulder. She has thrown up shields around her mind and I can only assume that she did something embarrassing to vent her rage afterward. That, or she cried and doesn't want me to know about it.

It takes me a moment to realize that she is crying _now_. She lifts her head and slides her arms around my neck. I shift my hold to accommodate the new position.

"He was supposed to marry my sister," she whispers.

"Narcissa?" I ask in surprise.

"No, my _other_ sister," she answers, "the traitor, the tramp who ran off with a Mudblood."

Oh, her. I always forget that there was a third sister. (I suppose there still _is_. She is alive, as far as I know.)

Bella presses her body more closely against mine and, in turn, I wrap my arms more firmly around her.

"I was engaged to his brother," she says. This information is new to me. "After my sister ran off, Rodolphus fought his brother for me. He fought his brother, _dueled him_, and won. He told me that even though he was engaged to my sister, he'd fallen in love with me. He told me that _and I believed him_." Her voice is anguished as she tells me that she believed she was loved. "My parents didn't care which brother I chose. Either way, it would be a respectable pureblood marriage." Her shields have slipped and I get the sense that she now thinks she would have been better off with her original fiance, with whom she would have knowingly entered into a loveless marriage. "Narcissa always belonged to Lucius. They were married earlier than they planned... and Draco was born seven months after the wedding. Lucius has always believed Draco was his. Arrogant git that he is, he must have thought he was too handsome for Narcissa's attention to stray..." She clings tightly to me for a moment, choking back sobs. "Why did I believe him when he said he loved me, _why_...? What _was_ I to him all this time? Second best? His last chance for a respectable pureblood marriage? A way to stay close to my sister without arousing suspicion?" She presses her face against my neck and weeps.

I want to comfort her but I do not know how.

I start to speak, but she cries out, "No!" Her outburst startles me into silence. "Don't lie to to me," she pleads. "Don't tell me it will be alright, because it _won't_. Don't tell me that this is for the best, because it _isn't_. Please don't lie to me. _You_, at least, have never lied to me before."

"I've lied to you before," I say.

She laughs bitterly. "Not this kind of lie."

I do not know what kind of lie she means nor what kinds of lies she finds acceptable, seeing as how she does not seem to mind that I _do_ lie to her. Her guard is completely down and I reach into her mind for the answer.

That he loved her. This is the lie that she finds unforgivable. She was never in love with him but the love he supposedly held for her allowed him to manipulate her, to a certain extent, because she felt the need to at least try to reciprocate even though she did not truly have feelings for him. In a way, the guilt she felt over not being able to return his feelings made it easier for him manipulate her. She is glad she never fell in love with him because this would hurt much more if she had. She might have been tempted to fall for him sometime during the course of their marriage if only she hadn't always been-

She throws her shields up with such force that I am immediately and totally shut out of her mind. But not fast enough to stop me from catching the tail end of that thought. It is, by far, the most shocking revelation of the day.

_Dear God, she is in love with me_.

And from the sudden urge I have to cause massive amounts of bodily harm to Rodolphus Lestrange, I'm assuming that my feelings towards Bella are a bit more complicated than I previously thought.

Glass houses, indeed.

-end-

**A/N: I've been dying to have a fic that I could actually use the title Glass Houses for. Shall I continue the "vague references to well-known sayings/1st person Voldemort POV" series (as I like to call it) or let it end here?**


End file.
